


Strangeness and Charm

by glitterandgin



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Proposals, shameless fluff really, there are trees with less sap than this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4530018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterandgin/pseuds/glitterandgin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the weirdest thing in a long list of weird things that had happened to Anders that day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangeness and Charm

It had been a weird day. Anders wondered when he’d eventually stop thinking that, considering his sense of normal was slowly growing to accommodate Oghren’s body odour and daily skirmishes with darkspawn, but all things considered, it had still been a weird day.

When he’d first awoke, there’d been snow. In the middle of August. After an entire week of temperatures so hot he was seriously considering trading in his robes for anything more breathable--a loincloth, maybe. Then, at breakfast, the King of Ferelden was sitting next to the Commander. And they kissed. A lot. Wasn’t he married to someone else? And now, in the middle of the Deep Roads, which must have been designed by someone who thought claustrophobia was some fancy Orlesian dish, Nathaniel Howe was down on one knee in front of him.

At first he’d thought Nathaniel was disarming a trap, but the rogue didn’t so much as look at the ground--a mistake in Anders’ opinion, considering the place was basically built of muck of unknown origin. He just stared up at Anders with a smile that suggested he was moments away from becoming violently sick. His face looked so tense that Anders wouldn’t be surprised if something cracked.

“Anders,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I have something to ask you.”

“I’ll stop using your arrows as cat toys,” Anders said, bemused but still capable of keeping his tone lighthearted. _Something_ had to be normal, after all.

“I realise we haven’t known each other long,” Nathaniel said, having apparently not heard Anders. “But these months have been long enough for me to know that I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”

_Well, it wasn’t like he was going to run off to Par Vollen, was it? Unless… Oh._

His suspicions were confirmed when Nathaniel fished in his pockets and produced a ring, which had a small emerald in it and had been meticulously polished. Nathaniel said, “Anders… Will you?”

Anders blinked. His brain was frozen, incapable of focusing on anything but the ring, which gleamed in the dim light. Eventually he managed to squeak out, “Didn’t I see that on a corpse? Are you proposing with a corpse ring?”

“Anders,” Nathaniel said, and you’d have to really know him to know that his tone, while dry, was just as tense as Anders’. And Anders realised that he did. Really know Nathaniel, that was. He could recite Nathaniel’s morning routine; he’d memorized every line that appeared in the rogue’s face when he smiled. He knew the little hitch in Nathaniel’s breath that indicated he was about to snort mid-laugh. With a little effort, he could probably recount every time they’d made physical contact. When had he started mentally cataloguing these things, and could he do that with anyone else?

Anders just nodded mutely. His vocal cords had apparently fled with the rest of his brain.

“You might want to get off the ground now,” he said after he was certain he could speak at a normal decibel.

Nathaniel chuckled and complied. He took Anders’ hand and slipped the ring onto his finger. This time, when he smiled at Anders, all the tenseness had evaporated from his face. Anders didn’t have time to check the lines in Nathaniel’s face against the ones in his memory because Nathaniel was kissing him and it should have been the weirdest thing that had happened all day, but instead it felt like his world had been turned right-side up for the first time in his life.

* * *

fic inspired by [this](http://rebelapawstates.tumblr.com/post/125656470738/here-is-the-proposal-for-any-doubters-im-sure-it) screencap


End file.
